advice on moving from 5g to 10g batches

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Righlander

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
506
Reaction score
6
Location
Largo Florida
been doing 5g batches for a couple years. it's time to move up to 10g. also i'm used to using my 10g orange mash tun cooler. now i'll be using a gravity fed brew sculpture. never used a pot with a false bottom like this to do a mash. any advice? any advice on recipe formulation?
 
I do 10gallon batches but with a larger cooler than you, not a false-bottom kettle.

my only recommendation is that you have a SS valve on your brew kettle. do not try to lift 10 gallons of finished wort! accident waiting to happen
 
Not sure what your looking for exactly, we use a 32g garbage can we made into a mash tun with a thermometer and 3pc ball valve and the blichman false bottom from their 20g pot fits the bottom nicely. We use gravity as much as possible using a 3 tier system we designed out of 4x4s and plywood. We can actually pull off 30g low abv batches using a keggle and the 20g blichman kettle for the boil, but its a pain in the ass. haha Most of the time we stick to 15g batches. Recipes are the same, just double everything!
 
Yeast

If you don't have a stirplate, you'll probably be wanting to think about getting one. If you're fermenting in a single fermentor or splitting your batch between 2, you're effectively also doubling the quantity of yeast you need to be pitching and stirplate and large enough vessel (at least one gallon) are a large help.

One of the things I love about 10 gallon batches is pitching two different types of yeast into the same wort. So, if you're a liquid yeast user like me, you'll want two stirplates for your starters.


Buying in Bulk

Figure out a way and just start doing it. The cost savings is fantastic. With 10 gallon batches, I'm blowing through grain and hops. But by buying in bulk, my cost (non-equipment) is generally less than $0.50 per 12 oz beer.


PUMP and Valves on all kettles

These things in conjunction are the two upgrades that have made my brew days effortless. I know you mentioned a gravity fed system, so you may not have to worry about it as much or at all. I didn't have that luxury, so a pump was necessary to pump my strike/sparge water and the wort into the kettles at the end of the boil. Gravity or not, a pump is essential if you want to recirculate your wort during chilling. I recirculate through my plate chiller (and many use a recirculating whirlpool immersion chiller) that really helps me chill and (with the plate chiller) allows the bulk of the volume of wort to come down quickly (rather than have the mass volume of wort in the kettle sit hot while it does one pass through my chiller into the fermentors).

More fermentors

Get these too.

Kegs

Also extremely helpful, although I did bottle a couple 10 gallon batches before I finally upgraded.
 
A 10 gal MLT is a little small for 10 gal batches. 15 gal would be ideal. I have a a 54 qt cooler for my 10 gal batches and it's just a tad too small.
 
I'd be converting a 70qt cooler for this upgrade if I go for it. Though the way I'm thinking the false bottom, it will be more like a 66-68qt after the conversion. I figure that will be enough for all but the biggest of beers and those I don't think I'd need more than 5 gal of anyway.
 
i just started brewing last summer and only have 10 brews under my belt and i already want to go up to 10gal.
the only thing stopping me is the desire to scale up 15gal and just be done with it. be able to brew a 1/2 barrell at a time is so tempting.
5 gal cornies just go so quickly... ugh
decisions decisons
 
Werd, we did 2 5g batches, 2 10g, and now vary between 15-25g depending on the beer. Oh and start fermenting in sanke kegs, so much easier than a bunch of carboys. Plus you can boil water in them to clean and sanitize. The better bottle caps fit right on there and run std hose for blow-off.
 
A 10 gal MLT is a little small for 10 gal batches. 15 gal would be ideal. I have a a 54 qt cooler for my 10 gal batches and it's just a tad too small.

I use the same size cooler, and I agree. Definitley pushing the limits.

The biggest thing that I forgot when switching to 10 gallons was that my copper coil cooler had to work twice as hard. I ended up adding another 25' of copper to it. I think I'm around 70' of copper right now, and it works like a charm.
 
Get a plate chiller and never look back. Our Blichman takes 200 degree wort to 60 degrees as fast as gravity can drain the kettle, using just hose water.

This depends more on the temperature of the water than the chiller. If you have 80 degree groundwater but a Blichmann plate chiller you're still never going to get colder than 80 degree wort.
 
Yep, we're lucky (I actually had throttle my chilling water on and off this past Sunday because it was chilling too much) but I brewed in Nashville for 3 years or so. It's dreadful in FL as well.
 
and yep im using a plate chiller. only cools the wort to 78 in the summer. ferm freezer has to do the rest before i pitch. it's always been like that here in florida. sometimes i can't pitch till 8 hours later
 
Huh, never thought about that, figured your ground water would be similar to ours even in the summer. If you think how caves stay pretty cool even in warm climates, thought the water coming from deeper would be even cooler. Thats gotta suck! 8 hours! "Aint nobody got time fo dat!"
 
Where is ground water 80 degrees? Even in the summer during 90* weather we cool to mid sixties no problem.

Ground water in central Phoenix is over 90 degrees at 1am in July. At least at my house it is. Now that I have a pump I'm hoping brewing this summer goes better. Going to pump through the CFC back into the boil kettle. After that chills as much as possible, I will pre-chill the cooling water and try and drop it further.
 
Use a BIG cooler! I use a coleman MAX with a ss braid, batch sparge and it works great!
I use a plate chiller, but in Duluth, our Lake Superior is COLD, even compared to Lake Michigan.
(You southern guys.... ;) )

Split into 2 6 gal better bottles to ferment!

I brew 10 gal batches, AG, all gravity feed, with NO pumps!
 
Where is ground water 80 degrees? Even in the summer during 90* weather we cool to mid sixties no problem.

Y'all come visit us in Alabama once we get homebrewing legalized. 80+ degree ground water isn't uncommon from July through September.

My brew bud and I use a prechiller (his 25' chiller inline with my 50') in a sink filled with ice water for those months. Works great.

Given decently cold water and stirring the wort, we can go from boiling under 70* in 20 minutes with immersion chilling. The one time I saw a plate chiller in action it didn't do any better, but to be fair it didn't seem like it was being used properly.

-Rich
 
Back
Top